Bills beat up the Dolphins up front

BUFFALO --Sometimes football truly is, as coach Joe Philbin says, not that difficult a game.

Much of it is as simple as blocking and tackling.

And so if you're wondering why the Buffalo Bills, a team that is the worst in the NFL at stopping the run, could stop the Dolphins Thursday night, all you have to do is look at the blocking and tackling.

The Bills tackled and they beat the Dolphins off blocks.

It wasn't any exotic scheme that helped the Bills. It wasn't a team stacking the tackle box against Reggie Bush that limited Miami to only 60 rushing yards and 2.5 yards per carry.

It was the Bills simply beating the Dolphins physically up front.

"You got to give credit to them. They did a good job up front," said quarterback Ryan Tannehill. "They weren't bringing safeties down. They did a good job of shedding blocks and making tackles.There were a few times I turned around and there was really just nowhere to run. And that's with no safeties being in there. So you have to credit their front seven for doing a good job of making it difficult to run."

So, as I told Tannehill, what he's saying is the Bills were winning up front. They were beating the Miami blocking up front.

"For some of the game, yeah," Tannehill said. "We just couldn't get things going."

That's it. In a nutshell.

The team that was giving up an average of 163.7 yards per game on the ground coming into this game beat the Dolphins physically up front.

And that leads me to this question:

Why?

How is it that an offensive line with a first-round pick at left tackle, a first-round pick at center, a second-round pick at right tackle, a third-round pick at right guard and a guy who was signed as a free agent solution a couple of years ago at right guard get beat physically?